David Cameron’s £450 million "payment by results" plan to
turn around 120,000 “problem families” is in danger of being abused by
councils who will judge their own success, officials have said.

Local authorities will be able to claim up to 80 per cent of their funding regardless of whether they succeed in cutting anti-social behaviour, truancy and crime, the government’s Trouble Families unit said.

Officials running the programme, led by Louise Casey, will conduct “spot checks” on only a “small number” of councils to establish that they are reporting their own results accurately.

In December last year the Prime Minister announced a new drive to tackle the 120,000 “troubled families” who cost the state a “monumental” £9 billion a year in crime, anti-social behaviour, disruption in schools and health problems.

Mr Cameron promised £448 million to be given to councils that help these families avoid “social failure” and turn their lives around. Councils will be paid for helping families find work, cut anti-social behaviour, attend school regularly and cost taxpayers less overall.

Councils are expected to identify the families in their areas and launch schemes using local charities and private firms to turn their lives around.

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The Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) is providing councils with £4,000 for each family they successfully help on the “payment by results” system.

However, in the first year, councils will receive 80 per cent of the funding regardless of the outcome, as an “attachment fee”, according to the funding rules. Only 20% is being provided on a “payment by results” basis, the DCLG said.

In guidelines to councils, Ms Casey’s office said: “We are asking for self-declarations of these results by your local authority and the Troubled Families team will issue results payments on the basis of these declarations.”

Councils should confirm that their results are accurate using their own “internal audit arrangements”. The DCLG will also “carry out a small number of ‘spot checks’ in a sample of areas”.

However, the guidance acknowledged that there was potential in the system for “double payments” for improvements already under way as a result of existing projects.

Family intervention schemes, the Work Programme, therapy services for adolescents and other grants totalling hundreds of millions of pounds are available to councils.

“It is very important that we deliver maximum value for money and so we need to ensure, as far as possible, that we don’t pay twice for the same family achieving the same outcome under different programmes,” the document said.